Taken in a kampung, a small village built on stilts over a swamp in Kelapa Gading, North Jakarta. These children, for the most part, seemed to be enjoying life like any others, despite the abject poverty they’re surrounded with.

I love this photo; there’s just so much going on, so many thoughts, so many details. It certainly won’t appeal to everyone, but it represents an important part of Jakarta’s culture, and the vibrance of youth in this nation. It cannot be fully appreciated at such a small size as this blog offers.

This was actually taken last April, but apparently I forgot to ever post it. Seems I have a bit of a backlog of photos – 20,000 that have never seen the light of day. That’s part of the paradox with the digital revolution; we are able to capture many more photos for a lower cost and store them on massive hard drives. Yet, time flows the same. Instead of taking 3 rolls of carefully composed photos on film, we now take the equivalent of 15 rolls knowing we can sort through them later. Always later. I could stop shooting now and still take years to go through all of the photos I’ve taken. However, there’s always a new subject, a new camera to try, new places to visit, new techniques learned, and fresh perspectives to capture. Therefore, I’ll never actually catch up with myself. It’s difficult to be able to give each photo the care and consideration that comes with hand-working each print in a darkroom. Is technology always a blessing?